The Boulder Opera Company, founded in 2012, is probably best known for its annual children's opera productions — abridged versions of standard works performed around the holiday season.

But the annual spring opera for adults, a complete piece presented in an intimate atmosphere, has already gained a reputation for high quality and imaginative concepts. Last year's poorly-attended staging of Handel's "Orlando" at First United Methodist Church was artistically solid, and the Western staging of the baroque piece actually worked.

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In 2014, the company's first full production was an atmospheric, haunting performance of Barber's "Vanessa." The vast floor space at the Dairy Arts Center, which amply accommodated the staging and the orchestra, was a wonderful venue.

Boulder Opera returns to the Dairy this week with Mozart's "Don Giovanni," a far more "standard" opera than the previous two. One of the very greatest operas, "Giovanni" has universal themes that lend themselves well to re-imagination. Opera Colorado set it in the 1950s in 2013, for example.

Following Friday's staging at the Dairy, the production on Saturday moves to another intimate venue with a flat stage, the Broomfield Auditorium.

Andrew Crust, who is in the final stages of his doctorate in orchestral conducting at the University of Colorado, will conduct the opera. Crust told the Camera that Mozart's masterpiece was his choice. He said that Mozart's three operas with the great Italian librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte are satisfying and great fun to conduct.

"For the budget of Boulder Opera, and in a venue like the Dairy, it really is a perfect choice," Crust said.

He will direct a 13-piece orchestra that is "basically the real deal, but slightly smaller," including single coverage on the string parts.

"The chamber-like setting of the venue brings the audience close to the music and the action, and the power really comes across," he said.

Stage director Michael Travis Risner comes to "Don Giovanni" with 20 years of operatic and theatrical experience. Risner attended high school in Broomfield and holds a master's degree in vocal performance and pedagogy from Colorado State University. He directed the Boulder Symphony's successful performance of Bizet's "Carmen" last year.

Risner told the Camera that he had reimagined the story of the womanizing Don for the 21st century, and has added a strong psychological element.

"The Don is a white-collar professional of some kind," Risner said, "and he owns a nightclub." The club provides the backdrop for some of the action, including an engagement party for the "peasant" characters Zerlina and Masetto, presented here as typical young kids. The Commendatore, whose murder at the hands of Giovanni opens the action, is a police chief.

"We're doing a lot with tech, using lighting and projections to establish an ambience," Risner said. "We really want the focus to be on the characters, and the interplay of their relationships.

Crust concurred, stating that "the music and the text come first." Crust said that Mozart and Da Ponte laid bare the gamut of human emotions, including fear, excitement and a fair dose of humor. Risner emphasized that while the humor still comes through in places, like the famous "catalog aria" from Giovanni's servant Leporello, the approach is more serious than usual. This means that the opera's most serious (and problematic) characters, the Commendatore's daughter, Donna Anna, and her fiancé, Don Ottavio, are given weight and substance and can be treated in a fresh way.

"The concept is closely related to the Freudian concepts of id, ego and superego, with the Don representing the id, Leporello the ego, and Donna Anna the superego," Risner said.

The strong cast is filled with professionals and CU alumni, including baritone Malcolm Ulbrick as the Don and soprano Emily Murdock as Zerlina. Soprano Ruth Carver, whom Crust called "a tremendously dramatic voice," plays Donna Anna, while tenor Pablo Romeró is a noble Don Ottavio. Soprano Phoenix Gayles plays the much-abused Donna Elvira. Baritone Tom Sitzler is Leporello. Bass Andrew Potter, who made a strong impression in last season's "Orlando," returns to play the Commendatore. Crust said that Potter, who is large in stature, is "imposing" in the role.

As for Mozart's score, it is mostly intact (including Elvira's great aria "Mi tradì," a late Mozart addition), and will have almost all of the recitative. But in a provocative and possibly controversial decision, Mozart's joyous closing sextet, which follows the dramatic damnation scene and has always been somewhat problematic, is being cut.

The opera thus closes with the heavy, imposing minor-key music of the damnation scene.

After the two main performances in Boulder and Broomfield, Longmont's Dickens Opera House will host a smaller-scale production on April 22 with piano-only accompaniment and a cover cast, including Risner himself as Leporello.

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